Hi
I am a 59 yrs old male with a reasonable standard of fitness and average weight/height and no medical history. About 10 days ago I was woken in the early morning by a sharp pain on the top of the left foot just above the ankle which lasted a matter of seconds. It appeared to me that the skin just below the ankle was slightly swollen plus the pain was mostly evident when I stretched the left side of the body. During the day there is hardly any pain and there is no pain anywhere else in the legs or rest of the body. I can walk without any problems – my job involves a lot of standing plus I do a lot of hiking and I can get swollen/tired feet if it is hot.

Over the next few days the same thing occurred each night so eventually I went to the doctor. I should explain that I live in France and sometimes describing a condition gets lost in translation. The doctor tested my blood pressure and manipulated the foot without any pain, He prescribed a short course of cortisone to be followed by ibuprofen. I will finish the cortisone tomorrow and it has helped to reduce the level of pain at night if not the frequency – the swelling also appears to have subsided.

I am perfectly happy to carry on with the ibuprofen but there is one other symptom that is a mystery and I wondered if others have had the same symptom. In the mornings and sometimes during the day the twinges in the foot are set off if I touch the nerves in my left shoulder or arms (but not below the waist). There is no pain in the area touched, just the foot! I assume the major nerves travel the length of the body so any restriction in the nerves in the foot might be aggravated by touching other parts of the body. Could cortisone cause this to happen?